Morgan, Laura E. (2022) Capricornia Project: An exploration of group differences in remote education tutor’s Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
Families participating in distance education, often from very remote areas of Australia, are required to source and nominate a Remote Education Tutor (RET) to supervise and deliver daily lessons for students. While some families employ an external person to fulfill this role, in other families the role falls to a family member, almost always the mother. This person plays a key role in the students’ day to day learning; delivering lessons, supervising work, motivating students and planning the day. The provision of this role can however impose a significant burden on families; either as a financial load, significant time commitment, or as an emotional load. Self-determination theory’s Basic Psychological Needs suggests that there are three universal needs that all humans have in order to thrive; autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Satisfaction of these needs result in greater levels of autonomous motivation and wellbeing, whilst frustration of these needs increases risk of passivity, illbeing and defensiveness, as well as more externally controlled motivation. This study uses data collected in a national survey of RETs from November 2020 to March 2021 to examine the extent to which these basic psychological needs are satisfied for externally employed RETs compared to immediate family RETs. Independent samples T-tests showed immediate family RETs on average reported lower levels of need satisfaction across all three basic psychological needs compared to externally employed RETs, and higher levels of frustration for autonomy and competence, potentially affecting student outcomes and attitudes to learning, RET burnout, negative affect and illbeing.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
|---|---|
| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Current – Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Psychology and Wellbeing (1 Jan 2022 -) |
| Supervisors: | Kristen Lovric |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Science (Honours) |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Jun 2025 03:27 |
| Last Modified: | 17 Jun 2025 03:27 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | remote education tutors; home tutor; governess; self-determination theory; basic psychological needs |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52591 |
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